Dr Mahesh Chander again, on the gender dimension in agricultural extension services. In 2005, I supervised a Master’s thesis*, wherein we found that male and female members of farming households differ with respect to their access to information. This difference in accessing information was due to the variation in opportunities available to male and female members of households for training, exposure visits, credit, mass media exposure, educational opportunities and social participation in informal and formal associations including contacts with development agencies. Likewise, many reports are now available, which indicate that extension and advisory service agents hardly reach poor rural women in many developing countries. It’s also true that most of the agricultural operations are performed by women, especially in animal husbandry women take up most of the task in India. This poor access to information, resources and opportunities to rural women have adverse effects on the productivity of crops and livestock in one way or another. The FAO report has rightly said: Agriculture underperforms because half of all farmers—women—lack equal access to the resources and opportunities they need to be more productive (FAO, 2011). We have observed, while organizing agricultural extension activities including animal health camps/vaccination camps, farmers’ fair etc., that if women extension agents are placed women farmers find themselves comfortable in sharing their problems related to livestock. Yet, female extension agents are very rare. In India, development of women's groups like self-help groups and all women dairy cooperatives are being promoted as a strategy to expand women's access to information, increase their comparative bargaining power, and create opportunities for collective action to access economic inputs. In practice, however, persisting gender biases, deep-seated community dynamics and women's time constraints prevent women from actively participating in these organizations intended to bring about social capital benefits and female empowerment. There is need to develop methodologies to ensure greater participation of women so that women are more formally associated and recognized as a productive force. Since there are clear gaps with regards to extension and advisory services for women farmers, we need not only more female extension agents, but also the extension and advisory services considerate to the needs of rural women. Improving the access of rural women to information, resources and opportunities could be the key factor in enhancing the profitability of small scale farms in developing countries. Therefore, while “Tailoring rural advisory services to family farms”, the gender dimensions should be kept in mind so that productivity can be substantially improved in small scale family farms. Dr Mahesh Chander Head Division of Extension Education Indian Veterinary research Institute, Izatnagar (UP) India Phone +91 581 2302391, Fax: +91 581 2303284 Email: Mahesh64 (at) email.com References *Gender factor in access of information on dairy farming and its role in milk productivity: An appraisal in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. M.V.Sc thesis, Indian Veterinary Research Institute, Izatnagar, 2005 by Devesh Thakur. Thakur, Devesh and Mahesh Chander. 2006. Gender based differential access to information among livestock owners and its impact on household milk production in Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh. Indian Journal of Dairy Science, 59, 6, pp.401-404. http://www.indairyasso.org/Journal1/Dec06/ra10.htm Extension and advisory service delivery for women’s groups in Jordan: Assessing competencies and building social capital. (http://www.meas-extension.org/meas-offers/pilot-projects/gender-research-jordan) FAO. 2011. The State of Food and Agriculture: Women in Agriculture Closing the gender gap for development. http://www.fao.org/publications/sofa/2010-11/en/ (in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish). http://www.ifpri.org/gfpr/2012/women-agriculture Empowering women through self-help groups. http://www.ifad.org/evaluation/public_html/eksyst/doc/insight/pi/india-13.htm Community Development through Self-Help groups. http://www.readindia.in/shg.html [To contribute to this conference, send your message to [log in to unmask] The last day for sending messages to the conference is 18 December. The searchable message archive is at https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?A0=RAS-L ] ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the RAS-L list, click the following link: https://listserv.fao.org/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=RAS-L&A=1